Rule Five Noncompliance Friday

In the years of the youth of yr. obdt., there was much talk about the uses of civil disobedience to influence culture and policy. Rosa Parks was often (and justifiably so) held up as an example of civil disobedience in defiance of an unfair and arbitrary policy – forcing black Americans to sit in the rear of buses and also to give up seats to white Americans. But those days are long past us and the egregious and unfair policy and legal decisions are largely coming from the political Left.

So when will conservatives and libertarians adopt the time-tested tactic of civil disobedience? The official Animal recommendation is to employ four words in one clear, concise and intuitive statement:

“I will not comply.”

Our own Colorado schools, for example, are not immune to the “zero-tolerance” insanity sweeping the nations, in which elementary school children are suspended or expelled for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a firearm. So what happens when parent, in response to such stupidity, say “I will not comply” and march their children back into school the next day, down the hall, into the classroom, and to their desk? Perhaps with a news crew at their back?

We no longer have freedom of association in this country. For example: It is now policy that bakers who object morally to gay marriage are nevertheless forced to make cakes for such weddings, or face government retaliation in the form of ruinous fines and gag orders. (For the record, I have no problem with gay marriage, but I am even more strongly in favor of the First Amendment.) What happens when these bakers state “I will not comply,” refuse to pay the fines, begin offering interviews, speaking far and wide about the destruction of their business, and still refuse to bake the cakes?

(By the way, what possible justification can there be for a gag order in this case? Is it just me or is that absolutely barking nuts?)

We are no longer secure in our property. The Supreme Court has ruled (unthinkably) that local municipalities can condemn private property in the name of eminent domain, not to build roads or rail lines but to hand the properties over to developers to build higher-revenue businesses in the place of lower-revenue private homes. What happens when the homeowners state “I will not comply,” and refuse to vacate their homes? What happens when the homeowners sit in lawn chairs in their front yards and say “come on, you sons of bitches; you’ll have to bulldoze me to get me off my property.”

These are four powerful words:

I.

Will.

Not.

Comply.

Washington State gun owners have already employed the tactic. It’s not a difficult concept, nor is it difficult to employ, but there’s a catch; isolated incidents of this are generally less than effective. For the “I will not comply” tactic to work, it has to be widespread – a rebellion of non-compliance, as it were.

Note that I am not discussing disobedience of laws that prevent one party causing physical or financial harm, but too much of the stupidity written as policy today does nothing of the sort. I am talking about laws that violate the citizen’s First, Second or Fourth Amendment freedoms to no good end, other than to prevent the citizen from giving offense or frightening the many and various hand-wringers who make up today’s perpetual Outraged Classes.

We are either a free people or we are not. Today, we are no longer a free people. Increasingly, government is pushing us away from liberty; we are no longer allowed to associate with or disassociate with who we please, we are no longer allowed to solicit or refuse business as we desire, our property is no longer really our own, and a prominent Presidential candidate recently made the absolutely horrifying statement that “…we cannot let a minority of people…hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people.”

Did you get that? We must not allow people to hold an opinion?

There is only one response to any possible policy resulting from such a laughable statement, and that is “I will not comply; fuck you and the horse you rode in on, but I will not comply.”